Note 973 — Chapter VII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH ACCEPTS THE LAY CONTRACT AND CEREMONIAL

Glanville, Tractatus, lib. vi, c. 1: Phillips, II, 381. "The term dower is used in two senses. Dower in the sense in which it is commonly used means that which any free man at the time of his being affianced (tempore desponsationis) gives to his bride at the church door": Glanville, vi, c. 1, as translated by John Beames (London, 1812). Cf. also Selden, Fleta, lib. v, c. 23, pp. 340, 341; Bracton, De legibus, lib. ii, c. 39 (fol. 92), Vol. II, 48; Horne, The Mirror of Justices (ed. Whittaker, London, 1895), 11; Fitzherbert, New Natura Brevium (Dublin, 1793), 352 (150); Hengham, Summa parva, c. ii: "Brevia de dote ad ostium ecclesiae;" Selden, Uxor ebraica, 198, or in Opera, III, 680.

That the gifta, or celebration as a temporal act, should take place before the church door is thoroughly in harmony with the early view that there purification or preparation should be made for the rites or service within the sanctuary. The atrium sometimes seems to be regarded as the medial ground between the world on the one hand and the sacred temple of God on the other; see, for example, Old Eng. Homilies, I, 72, 73: children are to be baptized in holy church, "and their godfathers and godmothers are to answer for them at the church-door, and enter into pledges (covenants) at the font-stone, that they should be believing (faithful) men." This passage is referred to in Mätzner, Altenglisch. Sprachproben (Berlin, 1878), II, 578, at "chirchedure." Gregory, in his Pastoral Care, 104, 105, referring to the brazen basins before the Temple supported by twelve oxen, says the bishops when they "descend to wash the sins of their neighbors, when they confess, they support, as it were, the basin before the church-door." According to the Capitula et fragmenta Theodori, Thorpe, Ancient Laws (folio), 313, "Si in atrio ecclesiae quislibet injuriaverit aliquem presbyterum, vel ibidem aliquod sacrilegium perpetraverit, altari et Domino componatur." With this compare Æthelred, Laws, VII, 13: Thorpe, Ancient Laws (folio), 142; Grimm, Wörterbuch, s. v. "Kirchthor;" Murray, New Eng. Dict., Part V, 406, at "church-door;" Ormulum, I, 43, ll. 1326, 1327; Chaucer, Prolog., 460: "Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve." See also Warnkönig and Stein, Französische Verfassungsgeschichte, II, 257; Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I, 377, 378; Whitgift, Works, II, 461-64; Brand, Pop. Ant., II, 133-35; Jeaffreson, Brides and Bridals, I, 46-59; Spirgatis, Verlobung und Trauung, 20, 21; Schubert, Die evangel. Trauung, 20.